<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>onóro by Dorkangel</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320735">onóro</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel'>Dorkangel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works &amp; Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Torture, Empathy, Fëanorian Week 2020, Gen, Himring, Hurt/Comfort, Orcs, Recovery, Slice of Life, Thralldom | Slavery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:54:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320735</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt for Day One of Fëanorian Week on tumblr: Maedhros, orc features, Himring, torture, adjusting/coping.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Maedhros knew well the differences between an orc and a tormented elf that looked like one - he was almost uniquely well-versed.</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>onóro</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was going to do the whole Fëanorian Week but I have the virus and I'm so exhausted so. Just one.</p><p>Gorthaur = Sauron (Sindarin, 'terrible dread')</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was not good to patrol alone.</p><p>Maedhros said so often to his soldiers; particularly to the mortals amongst them, who were so inexplicably inclined to recklessness and heroism despite that mortality, and who never listened. The March of Himring was a thankless, unforgiving territory, bleak and chill in summer, near unliveable for all but elves in winter, filled all year round with dark creatures creeping down from Angband and the ravenous jaws of ordinary carnivores besides. To patrol alone was to risk death by freezing, by fall, by avalanche, by bear or wolf or orc.</p><p>And yet here was Maedhros, unaccompanied despite the orders he gave his men - not to mention the promises he gave his brothers. He had known when he rode out from the fortress that he was being foolish, but hadn't quite grasped the depth of his foolishness until the sky had darkened around him and he had been forced to wrap himself deeply in his cloak, trying as hard not to be seen as he did to keep a watch for others. It was that uncertain time of the year when the sun set earlier and earlier and, further south, the last leaves were falling - a strange sight after growing up in Aman, where trees had lost their leaves, flowered, and borne fruit all at random, side by side. But that was no excuse. The youngest child in his realm would have known never to be alone at night.</p><p>Some small consolation was that he knew he looked fierce enough to ward off most beasts and any intelligent creatures. The horse would be a temptation for anything starving, of course, but his immense height, his chainmail, and the unsheathed sword glinting in his left hand would say he was not for eating. And an intelligent creature would be able to see the severe expression twisting Maedhros' face even further beneath the permanent scowl that Gorthaur's ministrations had left him. The scars were all healed now, but they were still too visible, deep red and white gouges marring his once-fair face as though he had been mauled by some wild animal - and in a way, he had. His fiery hair had only just grown long enough to cover them a little, brushing his shoulders now; still too short, too different from the flowing tresses of the other elves around him, but a comforting progress. Gorthaur had hacked it away with a razor, not long after he had first been taken prisoner, and although it had grown long again in all those years dangling from the cliff face of Thangorodrim, it had knotted and matted beyond repair. Caranthir had had to cut away the damage for him, careful and delicate, as Maglor sang him calm and Fingon pressed his hand in reassurance, and it had been neither as terrifying nor as painful as the first time - but with the notches in his ears where piercings had been ripped away, the scars, the hair, he wasn't himself any longer. He didn't even look like an elf. The light of Aman still shone in his face, but now it <em>burned</em>.</p><p>Only his family and the occasional bold human weren't afraid of him. Anything else that wished to live should avoid him, by all rights.</p><p>So then why did he have the distinct impression that he was being watched?</p><p>Maedhros slowed his horse gradually to a halt, lifted his sword as he took in his surroundings. Discomforted, the mare pawed at the ground, ears stiffly turned back. They had paused in one of the many narrow valleys within the hills, lined with pines and uncultivated as of yet, though a small village had formed around the guard post he had established there. There were many potential hiding spots within the trees and rockfalls; many places that a spy might conceal themselves.</p><p>"I know," he murmured to the horse, patting her neck with his right arm. His voice was still somewhat raw, not entirely recovered from his torment, but he could still raise it loud enough to call out.</p><p>"Who goes there?"</p><p>No answer came. He repeated the shout in Quenya, then in Telerin just for the sake of it.</p><p>The silence settled heavily around him, the only disturbance the sound of the horse's breathing. He knew there was still someone there. In <em>fëa</em>, he could feel them, a ragged, tangled presence nestled somewhere nearby amongst the fainter life forces of the plants and animals. A person, then.</p><p>Against all the logic he had ever know, Maedhros dismounted and took a few slow steps in what he thought was the direction of his watcher. Just as he had thought, there came a warning growl from a clump of trees, and he stopped again.</p><p>Even a hurt or dying orc would have attacked by now.</p><p>"There is a settlement nearby," Maedhros told the tense air flatly. "Elves and humans. They will kill anything they see as a threat to their homes."</p><p>He lowered his sword, though he did not sheath it.</p><p>"Is that what you seek? Death?"</p><p>There was a slightly rustling from within the undergrowth, and Maedhros thought he saw a pair of eyes, faintly pink, staring out at him. For another long moment there was only silence, then -</p><p>"What else is there for me?"</p><p>Their voice was little more than a rasp, rough as though with screaming. It was the same voice Maedhros had when he had first awoken after his rescue; a horrible thing that made him feel even less of an elf, more of a monster, and one that he had only begun to recover from with all the efforts of every healer that the Noldor and their allies could muster - care that he could not imagine this poor soul had received.</p><p>He tilted his head curiously.</p><p>"Show yourself."</p><p>The thing that lumbered from the shadows was gaunt, misshapen by years - centuries, even - of starvation and abuse, hunched and ghastly pale from living in caves, half-blind from it too. They were scarred all over, dressed in matted fur, and their hair seemed to have fallen out in clumps.</p><p>Almost every other creature in Arda would have taken them for an orc. They would have been killed on sight by any patrol, shot full of arrows before they even reached the edge of the village. But Maedhros knew intimately the differences between an orc and a tormented elf that looked like one - he was almost uniquely well-versed. It was there in the hesitation in their step, the intelligence in their eyes, the tattered nials on their hands in the place of claws, the cruelly docked points of what had once been sensitive ears. This was a thrall: an elf.</p><p>They stood as though braced for a blow, waiting for Maedhros to change his mind and cut them down. Instead he put away his weapon.</p><p>"Peace. You are no servant of Morgoth - not a willing one, at least."</p><p>Perhaps shocked, perhaps simply at a loss for what to do, the thrall made no move other than to stare at him with ever-wider eyes.</p><p>"Do you have a name?" Maedhros pressed.</p><p>They blinked, damaged eyes never leaving his face.</p><p>"I did," they croaked, eventually. "Once. Not for a long time."</p><p>He nodded. They looked to him like a miner of some kind, kept deep underground, in conditions too oppressive to speak or be asked for a name.</p><p>"I am called Maedhros, son of Fëanor, lord of Himring and the Northern March." He had been a high prince of the Noldor before, and would have introduced himself as such, but he had forsworn those titles, dispossessed himself. There was no recognition in the thrall's face - and, no, there wouldn't be, for all the while Maedhros had travelled to Beleriand and been suspended from the peak of the mountain, they had laboured beneath it.</p><p>"Lord of these lands." he clarified, suspecting the thrall had no idea where they were. When he recieved no answer he carried on his cautious interrogation. "How far did you have to travel to escape?"</p><p>They shook their head, seemingly glad to seize on something that they could actually answer.</p><p>"Not far. I couldn't. I..." They shuddered, looking almost ashamed. "That thing in the sky, it hurts."</p><p>On the arm they held up was a painful-looking red welt; an ordinary sunburn, to Maedhros' relief, not the stone effect that sunlight had on trolls and orcs.</p><p>"The sun, Arien," he explained, as gently as he was capable of, nodding upward. "A gift from the Valar, not a punishment. It'll hurt less when you're used to it - there's medicine, for the burn."</p><p>"Used to it?" they parroted, stunned.</p><p>Maedhros made a gesture in the affirmative, speaking a decision that he only then realised he had already come to.</p><p>"Himring would be a better place for you than the south. Deeper winters, longer nights, less of the sun." He half turned back toward his horse. "My fortress has the means to heal you. Come."</p><p>Accustomed to following orders, the thrall stumbled a few steps forward automatically - and then, mustering themselves, suddenly stopped in their tracks.</p><p>Maedhros raised an eyebrow, but they held their ground. It took them a moment to find their words, running their tongue over cracked and bleeding lips.</p><p>"<em>Why?</em> Why help <em>me</em><em>?"</em></p><p><em>No one else will</em> was not a sufficient answer, nor a kind one.</p><p>Instead, Maedhros raised his wrist to gesture first to a patch of red, stretched skin tracing down from his temple, just missing his right eye, and then to a similar scar on their left shoulder. It was not the same shape or depth, but he recognised it as the burn mark of a balrog's whip, same as his.</p><p>"Because Gorthaur has made us kin."</p><p>The harsh features of the thrall's thin face relaxed in understanding. They bowed their head, gathering themselves for a moment, and then nodded.</p><p>Maedhros turned his back to them, something he would never do to a creature he thought dangerous.</p><p>"Come, <em>gwanur</em>. It is not good to be alone."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><em>Gwanur</em> and <em>onóro</em> are the respective Sindarin and Quenya for 'kinsman' - <em>gwanur</em> is also a homophone (&amp; probably closely related) to the word for twins, <em>gwanûr</em>.</p><p>Orcs are, in my interpretation of Tolkien's works, definitely basically tortured elves - making them their own species has the nasty effect of demonising all members of a race, which is especially problematic considering Tolkien's explicitly racist descriptions of orcs. When Maedhros says that the thrall is not an orc, he's referring to the fact that they haven't undergone certain magical processes and still have a large degree of agency. They can recover, whereas orcs can't.</p><p>However, I believe that given enough time, orcs who pass into Mandos might be reborn in Aman into free, untormented bodies.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>